Image courtesy of The Green Health Spot.com

I have one child in elementary school and two in middle school.  This week I got three copies of the “When NOT to Send Your Child to School” memo.  Some of the information is so common sense, it makes me wonder, “Are there really parents out there who don’t know this?”

But it’s not always that easy of a call to make.  Sometimes you keep your child home for the child’s sake, but sometimes you keep him home for the sake of all those other kids.  And sometimes a child might display a stay-at-home symptom, but still run around like they live in the circus, and you think, “You are NOT sick!”

And of course, keeping a child at home wreaks havoc on the parents’ plans, too.  Parents have to stay home from work or arrange for child care, or if they work at home, they have to resign themselves to the fact that their day’s tasks will be lost to the demands of having a child there all day.

Still, in our little town of about 4000, we’ve had at least 2 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu (or swine flu), and rumors swirling around that one of the opposing team’s football players came to town after having been diagnosed with H1N1, and was still allowed to play.  I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, I’m going to be highly irritated.  Like I said, sometimes you keep your kid home to protect all the other kids.

So, when should you keep your child home from school?

• Fever. The experts say that if your child’s fever is 100.4 or higher, you should keep them home.  A fever is an indication that your child’s body is fighting a bacterial or viral infection.  Be aware, though, that not all infections come with fevers–my son and I get terrible sinus infections that never sport fevers.  Also, what’s the deal with 100.4?  Do you send them off at 100.2 or 100.3?  I’m not a doctor, but it seems to me you can round down on this one.

• Bad cough or bad cold symptoms. If a child has a cold, they can go to school.  It might not hurt to send some hand sanitizer, if your school allows it (some don’t because apparently some kids have been drinking it, so they don’t spread it around, but colds are an unavoidable part of school life.  But if their symptoms are bad, like a persistent wracking or wet cough, or a stuffy head that doesn’t respond to cold medicine, keep them home.  If it’s just a cold, they feel too rotten to get anything from school, but chances are it could be a severe allergy, a sinus infection, or even pneumonia.

• Diarrhea or vomiting. If things are coming out faster than they’re going in, keep your child home.  The guideline for this is 24 hours after the last episode of those symptoms.  I don’t always follow that strictly–if a child throws up after dinner, but then feels fine, I’ll usually send them to school.  Some tummy troubles have more to do with what they’ve eaten than being sick.  But if there are repeated episodes, they shouldn’t go.

• Sore throat. A minor sore throat could just be a symptom of a cold or allergies, but if it’s more severe or if it last more than a day or two, keep your child  home and take her to the doctor.  It could be strep, which is highly contagious, or tonsillitis, which is highly annoying.

• Earache. Again, this could be part of a cold or allergies, but it could also be an ear infection or sinus infection.  A doctor’s visit is probably called for.

• Pink-eye, or conjunctivitis. The frustrating thing about pink-eye is that the child feels fine otherwise.  So, they’re home, bored, missing lessons and missing friends, but they have this itchy eye thing going on and can’t leave the house.  Fortunately, pink-eye is easily cleared up with antibiotic eye drops, but until it is, they really have to stay home.  The biggest problem is that they rub their eyes, then touch things, and spread around this very contagious condition.

• Rash. Some rashes are infectious, and some aren’t, but it’s hard to tell which is which until your child has seen a doctor.  besides, you don’t want them to be embarrassed by constant itching or discoloration.

• Stress. This one isn’t on the medical sites, but I think it should be.  Our kids deal with significant stress in their lives, and sometimes it gets to be too much.  Every  now and then–maybe once or twice a year–let them take a mental health day.  Skip school, go to lunch, let your kid curl up in your bed and sleep late.  Kids do have health problems resulting from stress, and we all need a break every now and then.

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Image courtesy of sleepzine.com

I was browsing through a list of writing prompts, when this one caught my eye:

Do you agree with this statement: Parents are the best teachers?

We say that a lot, and we all assume we know what we mean by it.

If we mean “best” in that they teach the best things, and can be trusted to provide the best guidance to their children, then I don’t think we can say yes unequivocally.  Even if parents should be trustworthy, many aren’t.

But if we mean “best” in the sense that their lessons stick longer and are more deeply ingrained than any others, then I would say yes.  For better or worse, the “teaching” parents do lasts a lifetime.

Parents teach on purpose of course–we show a toddler how to snap his pants, we show a kindergartner how to tie her shoes, we teach siblings to share and teenagers to follow through on their obligations.  But the most significant and life-forming teaching parents do happens simply by the way parents live their lives.

Simply by living and talking in the presence of their children, parents teach an immense amount–in most cases far more than they are aware of.  Without even trying, parents can teach their children honesty, honor, kindness, gratitude, self-control, spirituality, work ethic, optimism, respect, and affection.

Conversely, with no conscious thought on their part, parents can teach their children dishonesty, cheating, cruelty, entitlement, self-indulgence, materialism, laziness, cynicism, disrespect, and selfishness.

For better or worse, we aren’t even usually aware that these are the lessons our children are learning from us.  But they do learn them, and their lives are formed by them.  Studies show–and common sense indicates–that the values and choices of parents will be emulated by their children.  Of course, there are exceptions–thoughtful people have always chosen different paths than the ones laid out for them.  And most people go through a period of life when they consciously reject their parents’ values.  But for the most part, more often than not, people return to the values they grew up with when they become adults.

So, in that sense, parents are the  best teachers.  The lessons parents teach last a lifetime.  Very few classroom teachers can say the same thing.

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We’re a fairly healthy family.   I mean, our kids have the regular complement of ear infections, flu, strep, allergies and injuries, but besides that, we don’t have too many other things going on.  Nevertheless, our medicine cabinet looks like it belongs in a pharmacy; between the five of us, we have so many bottles of so many things, it’s hard to keep track of sometimes. 

I don’t think we have anything anyone can get high on.  But the stats on kids who are doing just that with medicines they find at home are alarming.  This is from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America:

• Every day, 2,500 teenagers use a prescription drug to get high for the first time.
• 12 to 17 year olds abuse prescription drugs more than they abuse ecstasy, crack/cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine combined
• 60% of teens who have abused prescription painkillers did so before age 15
• There are as many new abusers age 12 to 17 of prescription drugs as there are of marijuana

Since we live in an area with a serious meth problem, that second statistic is particularly troubling.  And since one of my children is a teen under 15, that third stat doesn’t thrill me, either.

PDA has a 3-step method for reducing teen prescription abuse, and like so many things, it’s mostly common sense.  It begins with reducing the opportunity by simply paying attention to how many pills you have left and how often you have to refill your prescriptions. 

This may feel like you’re suspecting your child of something needlessly, but it’s just common sense–an ounce prevention worth a pound of cure.  If a teen is even tempted–and even the best kids face temptation–knowing that you’ve got the meds counted will often be enough to stop the temptation in its tracks.